The Living Dead
by Supersonicoverdrive92
Summary: Vada and Cassandra died young but had to wait three years for Annette to die before getting their second chance at life.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Cassandra and Vada's Deaths

Cassandra walked out of class with her messenger bag over her shoulder, not even bothering to put on the fuchsia scarf she had worn to school that day. Her long brown hair was braided down to about mid-back and the bangs, which were dyed a little more auburn, hung framing her pale face. She was wearing her favorite blue jeans, long, light, and tight, with the writing and paint spatters on them with a dark blue three-quarter-length sleeved shirt. She wore no make up, as usual and was not quite as "in-style" as her friends. Vada had a style all her own. On this particular day, her hair was pulled back into a short ponytail, with little layers sticking out all over the place and today her hair happened to be black with blue highlights. She was wearing a short black skirt with lots of frill and fluff over dark blue jeans and a corset over an old slightly cut up black t-shirt.

Cassandra and Vada had science class together and were really great friends despite the obvious differences between them. They had had a particularly hard test that day and were completely wiped out afterwards. After class on a normal day they would have gone to Vada's locker that they shared despite school rules against it and they would have made their way to the commons area to meet Annette for lunch. As they walked out of class they didn't know that this was not a normal day. This was their death day. They should have heard the screams and gone the other way but they didn't. They were discussing the answers they got on the test and attempting to project their grades. They weren't paying attention as people started running the other way, screaming something about guns. They walked right into the line of fire without ever realizing it. Both of them were dead before the shooting was even over. They were the first to be shot and didn't even have time to register what the loud pops meant. Annette would stand outside the school for hours looking for them, asking if anyone had seen them since the shooting. No one would.

Annette's Death

Three years after Cassandra and Vera's deaths

Annette's alarm went off at seven in the morning, just like any other day, and she was dismayed to find the inbox in her cell phone painfully empty. She and her boyfriend had just gotten in a fight yesterday during school and Annette had gone to bed early hoping that he would have texted her by the time her alarm went off and she woke up. She sighed in dismay and sulked as she walked out of her room and into the bathroom across the hall. She took a long cold shower before finally scampering back to her room, wrapped in a towel. She checked her cell phone again; still no message. She went to her closet and tried on what seemed like a million outfits before settling on well-worn jeans and a tight-fitting light pink top. She was going for comfort today rather than fashion.

She walked downstairs to get some juice for breakfast. She opened the fridge and decided to settle for apple juice. She poured herself a glass and walked back up to her room and sat down at her computer to check her messages and to print off her English homework. She replied to the few messages that she had as the printer turned on and finished making all of it's little noises. After she drank her apple juice and printed off her English paper she made a pit stop in the bathroom to brush her teeth before taking her empty cup down stairs and rinsing it out in the sink. She put her paper in her over-stuffed binder and grabbed her purse and cell phone before going to catch the bus. She could drive but preferred to ride the bus where she could do her makeup without having to get up earlier. Throughout the bus ride she kept flipping open her cell phone to check for anything from her boyfriend. It was during one of these searches through her voicemail and text inboxes that it happened. She didn't even notice as the out-of-control-crane hurled the beam in through the side of the bus. Her death would later be classified as a construction accident. Her boyfriend would mourn her death and spend the rest of his life wondering why he decided to buy her flowers and wait at school rather than call her.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

A sound like footsteps slowly came into my consciousness. I flinched every time the heels clicked down on the floor. 

_ Click. Click. Click. _

I looked over to see Vada doing the same. It was the first noise we'd heard in a long time. It seemed to reverberate in my head. 

_ Click. Click. Click. _

And then it stopped. Vada and I stood up on sore, wobbly legs. Neither of us said anything. It would have been pointless. In this dark void there is no air and once you have exhaled the last of the air that remained in your lungs through death, that was it. No more sound would ever escape your mouth. Vada and I instinctively move closer to each other and link arms, cowering together from what ever may be lurking just out of eye shot.

And then we hear a shaky voice call out, "Hello? Can someone help me?"

I would have screamed if I had had the air in my lungs. But I didn't, so I couldn't. I was trembling now so much that my knees buckled underneath me. My weight pulled Vada down with me and we made a hollow thump as we hit the ground.

"Who's there?" There's that shaky voice again. 

_ Click. Click._

There were more footsteps and then a lot of shuffling, as if they were turning around in a circle to look all around them. Vada tugged me to my feet by my elbow and began moving toward the shuffling. I struggled and pulled back as hard as I could on her but she was determined to get to the bottom of the strange voice and footsteps. A cold glare from Vada forced me to follow morosely behind her.

After just a few moments of walking I began to make out a dull orange glow off if the distance. 

_Click. _

"Hello?" 

_ Click. Click. _

As we got closer I began to make out the shape of a person completely immersed in the orange light that was steadily fading away.

"Who are you?" The voice was close to tears. Vada suddenly let go of my elbow and dashed forward toward the voice, who proceeded to scream. Not a second after they both tumbled to the floor, a second scream joined the first. A pillar of light shot down from above engulfing the voice and Vada in bright white light. Instinctively, I rushed forward into the light after Vada. She was all I had left. What was I supposed to do with her gone?

As I entered the light I found something green under my feet. It was hard while it was soft at the same time. It was cool and moist. It was even just a little bit pointy but crushed easily and painlessly underneath my feet. Grass. The pillar of light was larger than I thought. Vada was on the other side of the circle of light, just as awestruck as I was. The person was staring between Vada and me in astonishment.

To my left there was something very large. I walked closer with my arm outstretched until my fingertips brushed the rough surface. I looked up at the green growing out of it above me. It wasn't grass. It was all the wrong shape and not nearly as thick. A tree. I looked at the ground below my feet. The grass was a different color here. Not much different. It was darker and cooler. I was in a shadow. Looking back out I saw Vada slowly wandering toward me but she was looking straight up. I walked to her side and traced her line of vision to the bright, shining ball in the sky. It was warm and hurt to stare at. The sun.

Vada and I both shot each other worried glances at the same time. She was clutching her chest and my hands were moving in to clutch my own. An uncomfortable pressure had been there since entering the shaft of light but now it was becoming painful, unbearably so. It was now that I noticed the body that the voice had come from was standing with us. I stared at her, begging her with my eyes to help us.

"Breathe!" She shouted at me like it was obvious but I hadn't taken a breath in what felt like years. I stared in confusion at the girl for a second when I heard a gasp come from Vada. She was bent over with her hands on her knees gasping for breath. I was shocked that there was anything at all for her to breathe but a sickening flare in my chest forced me to fall to my knees on the ground. Now the pain was so great that I was sure I couldn't breathe even if I tried. Someone thumped me hard on the back and my lungs inflated with air. I heard a whooshing sound as the air went in and out in great amounts. Vada was breathing more normally now, more like how we did when we were still alive. I matched my breathing to hers so I wouldn't faint. I stared up at the sky, shocked, that I would even think I could faint. You need a heartbeat for that and a heartbeat was one living thing that I was still missing.

"I have to pee." I choked out of a dry, raspy throat. The girl looked shocked but Vada nodded in vigorous agreement.

"Well, where do you normally go?" The girl asked.

"We normally don't." Vada rasped. Vada cleared her throat trying to make it easier to speak but failed.

Water! It was suddenly falling down all around us, spreading out and darkening and dampening everything. Vada and I tilted out heads back and let the drops fall into our mouths. We drank for a long time as the strange girl looked on in amusement from the protection of the tree. Finally she interrupted us with a quiet throat clearing. Vada and I reluctantly joined her under the tree keeping close to each other incase this strange human decided to... To what? We were dead. There was nothing she could do to us.

After a long moment of silence, the girl spoke. "Cassandra? Vada?"

I took a step back, distancing myself from the strange girl but Vada nodded.

"Are you dead, too, then?" I looked at Vada in shock. What was she doing? How could she be so calm that this girl knew our names from when we were alive? When you died and came here, where ever "here" is, you lost everything that humans found important. Vada and I have never known how we got to keep each other. Maybe that was just to keep us from going insane.

"Cassie." Vada was looking at me peculiarly. "You know her." What? I can't know her. I'm dead and have been for some time. "Look at her." Vada persisted for I had looked down at the grass beneath us and then at the rain that was really more of a sprinkle now. I struggled to pull my gaze back to the girl but looked at Vada instead.

"No. I don't know her. And neither do you." I snapped, harsher that I had meant for it to be. Vada stayed calm and averted her attention from me to the girl.

"You're dead and you were her best friend. She knows you but she doesn't want you dead. So she thinks if she doesn't try to remember then it's not true." And then to me "But it's not true! She's dead!" I flinched back from the sharpness of the blade in her voice.

"Vada. Don't-" The girl protested feebly.

"What? You don't think she ahs a right to know that you're dead? That we're all dead?" Vada was angry now. I could feel her shutting us out as the quiet seconds passed.

"I know we're dead. I know she' dead. I just don't know _her_. I never knew her." I said meekly even though I knew Vada was done. The girl looked almost hurt. "I'm Cassandra." I said putting as much joy and happiness as I could into my words even though I could feel my face still crumbled in disappointment. "It's been so long since Vada and I have seen anyone else." Vada snorted beside me.

"Well maybe you shut down when we died but I didn't." Vada walked to the other side of the tree and sat down. I didn't make a move to follow her so neither did the strange girl.

"Annette." She smiled and took my hand. We shook hands awkwardly then looked around the circle of light for something to talk about. I noticed that it was steadily getting brighter. "Oh my God." I breathed. I may be dead but human expressions never seem to fade.

"What?" Annette asked, hopeful.

"There are walls. All around," I gasped. Vada looked at me curiously to see what I was up too. Annette glanced at her, clearly questioning my sanity. I was now running toward the other side of the circle of light, my eyes locked on something up above me. I smacked into a wall of dirt and fell backward onto the ground. Vada and Annette finally understood what I meant. They were frantically searching the walls for any break, for a way out. I sat and stared dumbly at the wall.

Vada ran to me and started pulling on my arm. "Cassie! Get _up_! Help us, Cassie!" I couldn't move. Vada and Annette stood in the middle with their backs to each other turning slowly in a circle to see if there was anything they missed.

The circle of light was so beautiful before with its sunshine and grass and trees seemed to be a terrible catacomb now. It was fitting. Catacombs hold dead people and this place, no matter happy pretty, had essentially become our catacomb, our final resting place. We weren't going to get out. My mind was almost overwhelmed with panic when I noticed something different with the walls.

I scooted closer to them and let my finger tips brush against the dirt walls. My fingers came back with something on them. It was brown, like dirt, but darker, and wet. Was it blood? Could the walls possibly be bleeding? But it was grainy. It couldn't be blood. It was mud. Looking at the walls now, I could see small trickles of water seeping out, becoming larger and more numerous. I screamed, even though I knew I couldn't drown if I was already dead. Vada and Annette began pulling on my arms, away from the wall and closer to the center.

"We're going to drown!" I started screaming over and over again. The fear had overwhelmed my mind and I was no longer I control of myself. I felt my legs collapse from underneath me. I curled up into the fetal position and began sobbing.

"Shut up, shut up, _shut up!_" Vada covered her ears and closed her eyes tightly. She nudged me with her toe until I looked up at her. "Go climb the tree." When I didn't move she crouched down in front of me, putting her face in mine. "Get your ass up that tree, Cassandra. _Now_."

Annette grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. She pushed me up onto the first limb of the tree until I started to climb on my own. The limbs were thick all the way up and my head was soon above the highest leaves.

"Can't you go any higher?" Annette asked, worried.

"I'm at the very top. What more do you want?" I snapped. I stuck my hand in the mud wall to my left. When the mud was almost to my elbows, my knuckles hit hard against stone. I grabbed on to it and stuck in a foot and my other arm, finding a handhold and foothold quickly. "We can climb out!" I cried down to Annette and Vada gleefully. Maybe we wouldn't have to die after all.

I started the slow climb to the top without looking down at the rising water, knowing that if I did I would freak out again and fall backward onto Annette and Vada.

"Cassie, you have to climb faster!" Vada was panicked. The water must have reached her. I almost went back for her then but knew that there was nothing I would be able to do. Instead, I quickened my pace. The top didn't seem to be getting closer, but it was a long way up.

Suddenly, water was pouring in from the top. I screamed as I saw it coming for us. I don't know why I chose her name to scream but I did. I screamed for Annette, only, I called her Annie. The water swirled around me and choked my lungs. I couldn't breathe. I was going to die- again.

As the water churned and thrashed I found someone, Annette or Vada. We reached out to each other and held on to each other as the water pulled us deeper until we found the other. The three of us had a death grip on each other- no pun intended.

The last thing I remembered thinking was remembering Annette. My Annie. My best friend, in life or death. And then I died again, for the second time in my short life.

**Author's Note- (i think...?) Anyways, obviously I cannot separate my story into paragraphs. So if someone could help me I would really appreciate it! Yeah, so this is pretty much my cry for help and you'll be seeing it on all of my chapters until I get help so if it annoys you, I'm sorry but you should help me (even if it's finding someone who can help me). OK then, thanks, I think.**


	3. Chapter 2

I woke up soaking wet and so tired that all I wanted to do was go back to sleep but I was afraid that next time I wouldn't wake up. It was dark here, just like the limbo Vada and I had been stuck in for so long before Annette came.

Vada and Annette.

Where were they? Were they here with me? I looked around and saw two lumps on the ground on either side of me. I rolled to my right.

"Annette? Vada?" I reached out and pushed on her shoulder. She groaned and looked at me.

"We died," Annette moaned. "Again."

I wrapped an arm around her shoulder in a half hug and tried to console her by saying, "It'll be okay." As she sat up I rolled back to my left. "Vada." I pushed her shoulder once. Then again. "Vada? Vada! Please get up!"

Suddenly her arm flailed and pushed me away. "Go away. I'm sleeping" She said groggily. I grinned at her critical attitude because I was glad to find that she was still herself, Annette was still herself, and I was still myself.

"Vada, just get up. We need to figure out where we are _this_ time." Vada finally sat up and glared at me. Annette was already standing and looking around.

"We're at the park," she whispered, mostly to herself, I think. "Cassie! Do you know what this means?" I didn't so I just shrugged and waited for her to explain. She sighed. "It means I can go home."

Vada walked up beside me as she joined our conversation and snorted. "What are you talking about? Of course, you can't go home." Annette looked hurt. But why wouldn't she be? She lost her life, everything she knew and loved, and now she was just within inches of it only to be told that she can't have it. Everything was within her reach. That's bound to take a toll on anyone's attitude.

"Guys! Stop that. Our lives are over. This must be a figment of our imagination," I tried to reason.

"And we're, what, all seeing the same thing then?" Vada snapped back.

"It could be. I mean, we did just die in death," Annette interjected, cutting off my sharp retort.

"How can you die in death? What happens then?" Vada questioned quietly. The three of us looked at various things in silence for a few moments because that was an answer that none of us could know.


	4. Chapter 3

**Author's Note- Well, no one has been leaving reviews so until I get any this is the last chapter that I will be posting until people start to leave me some kind of input. If you want more you're going to have to do something so I know at least one person is reading.**

Three years had gone by. We had been alive now for three years and were now eighteen years old as far as anyone out of the loop was concerned. Many predicaments and forged documents later, Annette, Vada, and I had an apartment of our own. It was old and run down but it was all our part-time jobs could handle. All seemed to be going well. We had, so far, eluded the authorities and were even finishing high school this year. The three of us had decided that we would go to college, the same college of course, and then we would see about getting separate apartments and trying to pick up what was left of our first lives.

I, however, was not too interested in moving out. It was so much easier to just pick everything up and move when we all lived in one place, Annette had been forced to say goodbye to more than one "love" this way. We had carried each other through the hard times. Was that going to be any different when we weren't forced to see each other all day every day? I was afraid it was but I would never tell either of them that, although I'm sure they already know.

I climbed off the bus at the park with two boxes wrapped in shiny wrapping paper, one under each arm, and a smaller one full of decoration supplies. I was meeting Vada and Annette here after work. I came early to set up. I was going to surprise them by decorating the spot where we "came back to life". I grinned at the thought of our little phrase. It's not like we knew what had happened to us or could explain it. My memories of that night are kind of fuzzy. Annette remembers though. For the first year, at least, she would have nightmares about it every night. None of us got a full night's sleep that way. She is better now than she was then. Now she only has the nightmares every once in a while. I shake my head sadly thinking about how they have plagued poor Annie the most.

I dropped their presents on a nearby bench and took to decorations with me. I pulled out a stick of white chalk and drew three outlines of bodies. Dropping the chalk back into the box, I grabbed a small bottle of glitter and sprinkled it around. I was sure if any officials saw the glitter they wouldn't be happy with me but it was a special day. It's the anniversary of our dying in death. I set Vada's gift down carefully into her chalk outline and put Annette's in hers. I grabbed the colorful streamers and draped them everywhere I could; from tree to tree, on benches, around a birdbath, and finally high up into the tree I started in to make a type of arch-like entrance. I grabbed several colors and followed them around in the same pattern, doing my best to twirl the different streamers together. When I was done, I stood back and looked at my work. They would like it, I was sure of it.

I smiled as I heard footsteps behind me and turned to find Annie walking forward, two shiny packages that were very much like mine clutched to her chest. "Cassie," she breathed in amazement. I waited for her to set the presents down in the chalk outlines then pulled her into a hug. Suddenly, we were tackled from the side. We knew who it was immediately. Let the party begin, Vada has arrived!

Annette grabbed a boom box that I hadn't noticed and began fiddling with it, muttering something about batteries, while Vada pulled a brown paper bag from underneath her jacket. Soon, music was thumping out of the boom box with the bass as high as we could possibly make it go and we were passing around a now half-empty bottle of Vodka. So far no one had called the cops on us like they have done every year.

The three of us were laughing about our lives before the first time we died. Those were the best times of our life, when we were spoiled compared to how we are now.

Finally, at exactly three o' two in the morning, Vada held up the bottle and said "To dying in death," just like she did every year and at exactly three o' three we each took a swig, starting with me since I was the first awake and then to Annette and then to Vada. Vada had refused to let us even see the boxes our presents were wrapped in and had hidden them behind the bench so while Annette and I passed out our presents that had been sitting in the chalk-outlines, Vada came back with three manila envelopes in her hands but didn't give us ours yet.

Instead, she sat down with us and put them beside her as we opened our presents. I gave Annette a matching pair of earrings and a necklace that she had been wanting for a long time and she gave me more hacking programs that she had undoubtedly had to go ask the nerds for. It made me wonder what she had to do for the nerds to get them. But I quickly shook that thought away. I know Annette better than that. Vada got five music cds burned from the computer. All of them had bands and songs listed on the front in different colored Sharpies. I gave Vada two small slips of paper. On each of them was a login and a password. "I hacked them for you and got you a two months free membership," I explained to her. Understanding lit her face as she hugged Annette and me.

We all sat in silence for a few minutes as the tension built and Vada stared at the envelopes she was holding her hands now. "Ladies," Vada began, "I hold here our fates, well, our first fate really. They're death notices and our obituaries and anything about our families that I could find on record. You don't have to look if you don't want to." Vada looked at both of us judging our reactions. I don't know what she found there but it must have been reassuring because she gave us each our envelopes and looked at us one final time before carefully opening her own.


End file.
